


Sleight of Hand

by Relvetica



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: I don't even go here but you know what, I love robots, I've fucked this toaster up pretty bad actually, M/M, YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE COPPERS, good news everyone I've taught the toaster how to pine, the everyone lives ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 21:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19303900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Relvetica/pseuds/Relvetica
Summary: Some good endings only really count as good endings because they end before it gets bad.On the other hand, some end before they get better.SO WHO WANTS TO TALK ABOUT THEIRFEELINGS?NO ONE? AWESOME





	Sleight of Hand

So it had taken Markus sweet-talking him for Connor to admit his situation to himself. Connor made it sound more complicated than that while he stood leaning into Hank's shoulder and told him about the parts he'd missed, that he'd been set up to disable his own protocols or whatever so he could be trapped in a crazy assassination scheme, but his explanation was hushed and halted, and Hank suspected he was maintaining the hug in order to evade eye contact while giving it. Hank chose to be kind, and he didn't point out what he felt was the more obvious scenario. He doubted Connor hadn't actually arrived at the same conclusion.

Hell. It didn't matter anymore.

"What do you think I should do?" Connor asked once they were out of the cold and in the car.

Hank frowned. "What do _I_ think? You just went through with all this revolution business and you're asking a human what you should do?"

Connor gave him a look he probably considered withering. A bit of a narrowing in his eyes. "I'm asking for an opinion. Not instructions."

"An opinion, huh." Hank crossed his wrists on top of the steering wheel. "Well. My opinion is that this situation is basically chaos. You guys won, but no one knows what the government is going to do about it. Or how long they'll take."

"That's true," Connor said.

"The way I see it, you've got two options right now. Hang around with your new friends and soak up all this notoriety you've earned, or let them keep it and lay low until we see what actually comes out of all this."

"I take it from your phrasing," Connor said, "that you'd prefer I do the latter."

Hank shrugged. "It's what I'd do if I'd just led an invasion into an American city."

Connor nodded, eyes downturned. His LED was flickering between yellow and blue. It was nice that he had such a visible tell; Hank would clean him out at poker. "You okay?"

"Yes," Connor said. "I think."

Hank leaned back in his seat, considering. "You feel any different?"

"...I beg your pardon?"

"Since. You know." Hank smiled wryly. "Deviating."

"Oh." Connor was quiet for much longer than it should have taken a supercomputer to come up with an answer. "No," he finally said. "I don't."

Hank nodded.

"I should," Connor added. "Shouldn't I?"

"Well." Hank sighed. "Okay. We're going to be honest now. All cards on the table." Connor looked up, frowning a little. "It's time to talk about your _feelings."_

Connor pressed his lips into a grim, thin line, but he didn't argue.

"We can save the heavier stuff for later, but right now, I can tell you this much. Emotional exhaustion is a thing. Even though you won, you just had a fucking hell of a week. You're allowed to feel tired."

"Androids don't get tired," Connor said.

"We're not arguing about whether or not you need sleep again."

"Semantics are important."

"I'm sure they are. But I'm talking about something else. If you're alive, you can get tired of anything. Tired of pretending you don't feel anything. Tired of having to fight for everything. Tired of not getting to be tired."

Connor looked away again. Neutral concession. Okay. "I'm going to take you back to my house, if that's okay with you. It's the first place anyone would look, but at least I have court-backed rights."

"Yes," Connor said. "That's fine."

Hank turned on the ignition. "And we'll figure things out from there."

\---

Connor shed the jacket with all of his signage by Hank's front door and looked around awkwardly for somewhere to put it. He looked weird in just his shirt and tie, but Hank was kind of charmed by it; he looked like an extremely wary Mormon. Hank took the jacket from him and pointed to the couch. "Come on, have a sit."

"Thank you." Connor approached the couch and seated himself without relaxing back into it, sitting ramrod straight like he did in chairs. Hank came around and sat next to him. Keeping in mind how grateful Connor had been when Hank hugged him -- grateful to be greeted like a person at all, possibly -- he gently draped an arm around Connor's shoulders. Connor leaned into it a little, accepting the gesture amicably.

"This exhaustion you were talking about," Connor said. "How do you deal with that?"

Hank couldn't help smirking. "Sleep?"

Connor closed his eyes and affected a sigh. "I don't sleep, Hank."

"You keep saying that, and I keep catching you nodding off in the car."

"I keep telling you that isn't what I'm doing."

"Yeah, yeah." Hank jostled him a little. "Sleep doesn't actually help very much. It just makes you _want_ to sleep."

"I see," Connor said. "That isn't very helpful."

"Well. Mostly I think you need to... I don't know, relax? Decompress? Don't think about missions for a while."

"That's..." Connor hesitated. "Difficult."

"Yeah. I get it." Hank sighed. "That must suck."

"Yes," Connor said. "It does suck."

Hank laughed a little. It sounded so petulant coming from someone staring into the middle distance and insisting he didn't want to go to bed.

Well, that wasn't a healthy way to mentally frame an adult android, but Hank was feeling indulgent and sentimental over the whole situation. "You trust me to try something kind of unorthodox?"

Connor looked up at him. "Of course."

Hank moved over on the couch some, and he tugged Connor down by his shoulder until he was lying sideways with his head on Hank's thigh. Connor didn't resist at all, but he also didn't relax until he apparently determined that this was, in fact, the destination. When the tension drained from him, Hank could feel how it came from the shifting of soft plates in his neck and torso and not the release of muscles. He even drew his legs up onto the couch, shoes and all.

Hank rubbed his back and watched him continue to stare across the room in silence. "...You must think this is pretty pointless, huh?"

Connor blinked very deliberately. "No. I don't." He brought his hand to his face, staring at it expressionlessly, and the skin faded away to reveal that disconcertingly gleaming plastic. He reached for Hank's forearm wordlessly and wrapped his smooth fingers around it.

Hank was surprised by how painfully his heart lurched. He turned his arm over to grasp Connor's in turn, and he felt nothing but how Connor's sleeve slid frictionlessly when gripped without his skin beneath it. He doubted Connor felt anything beyond the laundry list of statistics he produced whenever he touched anything, but he closed his eyes and tucked his chin in toward his chest. It was an eerily human gesture, and there was no reason for Connor to faking those now.

"It's going to be fine," Hank said softly. He smoothed Connor's hair with his free hand and said it again, more to himself than Connor. "Everything is going to be fine."

\---

Hank left Connor in the living room when he went to bed, to read or fuss around on the internet or whatever it was androids did all night. He woke abruptly at some point to the sound of one of his records coming on and the stereo hastily being turned down.

Okay, Connor could get away with _that_ exactly once.

He tried to give him some space the next day, but Connor had never been a fan of space. He was unusually quiet, but he fell into following Hank from a small distance at least from the living room to the kitchen and back; he knew better than to wander after him down the hall toward the bedroom. Hank was going to have to talk to him about how he really needed to stop acting like a well-behaved dog, considering, but for now he let him have his habits and small comforts. It was the least he could do, given what a shit he'd been about all of it before.

"You feeling any better?" he eventually asked, eating a microwaved lunch and letting Connor watch him from the doorway.

"Yes, actually. I am." Connor smiled. "Thank you for asking."

"You look better." Connor cocked his head, and Hank tapped his own temple at him. "I was half afraid I was going to wake up to find you'd taken a steak knife to that thing. Seems to be the first thing you guys do."

"That's just an effort to hide. It doesn't affect me one way or the other." Connor considered. "You'd prefer I keep it?"

"I mean... it's not up to me. But yeah, you'd be kind of hard to read without it. I like being able to tell when you're brooding or having a panic attack or something."

Connor crossed his arms. "I don't have panic attacks."

"Uh huh." Hank ate a mouthful of bland lasagna. "You definitely brood, though."

"I suppose." Connor reached up and touched his LED thoughtfully. "There is a political aspect to its removal. It's one of the identifiers mandated by law. It's objectifying by definition, and many have been trying to distance themselves from that."

"Yeah?"

Connor dropped his hand from his face, "I don't think that's worth damaging a biocomponent over."

"Well, that's _definitely_ up to you. Just don't leave blood all over the sink if you change your mind, okay? None of you ever seem to clean up after yourselves."

Connor smiled a little. "It evaporates."

"Honestly, that makes it creepier."

"I'll make an effort not to bleed on your house, Hank."

Hank sighed. "I'll take what I can get."

Connor watched him eat in silence for a few minutes; Hank resisted the urge to tell him to knock it off. Eventually, Connor said, "I hope you haven't stayed home from work because you're worried about me."

"Hm? Oh, no, I'm on two weeks' unpaid leave." Hank smirked. "Which I'm sure Jeffery's thrilled about now with a city-wide evacuation underway."

Connor blinked. "You're under suspension? Why?"

"Because I attacked a federal agent, genius. I should have been fucking fired, but the department can't afford to lose anyone else right now."

"Oh." Connor frowned. "I didn't mean to get you into any trouble."

"Nah, it was fun." Well, that part had been, anyway. Connor looked down at the floor, brows drawn, but he brightened again immediately when Sumo came through and bumped his shoulder into his leg. Hank watched Connor kneel to put his head at level with the dog's, which was somehow enough to distract Sumo from his determined march toward his food dish. His tail thumped as Connor delicately stroked the top of his head.

It occurred to Hank abruptly that Connor probably really did like dogs. Like that squatter who really, _really_ liked pigeons. Fuck all this recontextualization shit.

\---

"When was the last time you mopped?"

Connor had taken his shoes and socks off at some point in the evening, and if the way he was scrutinizing the kitchen floor was any indication, he was playing around with collecting data through his feet. He had also switched the shirt and tie for one of Hank's old sweaters, which half-swallowed him but made him look less like someone's lost intern. Hank was going to have to take this guy shopping if the stores ever reopened.

That was thinking of Connor in the long term, though, which Hank probably didn't have any business doing. Connor wasn't actually _his_ android; he wasn't anyone's android now. What _was_ he going to do? Get an apartment? What would he even do with an apartment? What had he been doing since CyberLife had released him into the wild and before he'd ended up here?

"Hank?"

Hank set down his glass. "What, you actually wanted an answer? I don't know."

"You don't know?" Connor looked up, glancing between the glass of scotch and Hank's face. Hank braced himself for the lecture, but Connor only said, "Not mopping regularly is unhygienic. The city is going to shut you down."

Hank grinned. "Yeah, I don't know what I'm gonna do without my house license." He took another sip. "You, uh, having fun, there?"

"Not particularly. I've just never tried this before."

"Not very hygienic of you."

"It doesn't work very well, either."

"Guess they weren't expecting you to work barefoot much."

"Guess not." Connor leaned back on the wall and eyed the table evenly. 

So: not commenting, but definitely judging. Hank was already taking back all the nice thoughts about shopping for him that he hadn't shared. He drained his glass defiantly. "God, my clothes look ridiculous on you."

"You've deemed me 'goofy-looking.' I didn't think you'd be bothered by ill-fitted clothing."

"What? ...Oh. Hell, Connor, I didn't mean that. I just wanted to see how you'd react."

Connor blinked. "How I'd react?"

"Yeah."

"To having my appearance judged poorly?"

Hank sighed and refilled his glass. This was going to be a rough couple of days. "Look. When I said that, I was still thinking of you as... an expensive toy, I guess. So yeah, I said shit just to see what you'd do a couple of times. I mean," he gestured up and down vaguely, "it obviously wasn't _true."_

"It wasn't true or false; appraisals like that are subjective. Test groups can't represent everyone."

"All right. I'm sorry I insulted you to see what would happen." He sighed over his drink. "I'm sorry I thought it was funny. I didn't know... I just didn't know."

"It's okay," Connor said. "It didn't bother me."

"Sure it didn’t. You just threw it back at me now for no reason."

"It wasn't my intention to throw it back at you. Why would I do that?"

Hank glared. "To make me apologize for it, apparently."

Connor frowned back. Mirroring, Hank thought, not for the first time. "When did--" Connor started, and then stopped abruptly.

"What?" Hank asked. "When did what?"

Connor adopted a more neutral expression. "When did you stop thinking of me that way?"

Hank sighed and took a mouthful of the scotch. "I don't know. It was gradual. ...After the Eden Club, I guess."

"You were troubled by that couple who escaped."

"I was, yeah, but... it was more that _you_ were troubled by them. All three of you were very troubling."

"What do you mean?"

"There was just..." Hank drummed him fingers a bit. "A lot to digest, there."

"You drew your gun on me."

"Well, I was drunk."

"You're drunk now."

"I'm working on it, yeah."

Connor was quiet for a long moment. "You believed Kamski."

Hank sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "There wasn't really anything to believe there, Connor. You couldn't do what your creator told you. You were upset that you couldn't do what he told you. You were spinning red there."

"Yeah."

"So, yeah. There's a bit more going on there than I thought at first. I didn't know _how_ much until I met your evil twin, but... yeah, there isn't a lot to it. You just changed my mind."

Connor cocked his head. "My evil twin?"

"Yeah. The other guy. The one that came after me." 

"Oh."

Hank sat back a little. "What else could I have possibly meant by that?"

Connor shook his head. "Nothing. ...I just wouldn't have thought of him that way."

This was not a path Hank actually wanted to go down, but morbid curiosity pushed him on. "What would you think of him as, then?"

"He was just another unit in my model line. If something had happened to me in course of the investigation, he would have been sent to you as to a replacement."

"What?" Hank sat up a bit. "You mean, like, if you'd _died?"_

"Yes."

"They would have sent us that asshole and acted like nothing had happened?"

"You likely wouldn't have known the difference. He'd have had my memory backups installed and would have picked up where I left off, so as to disrupt the investigation as little as possible."

_"Connor."_

"I know it sounds callous," Connor said, "especially after everything that's happened, but that's how CyberLife operates."

"Connor." Jesus. Hank finished his glass and rubbed his eyes hard for a moment. "Losing your partner isn't like breaking your phone. That's the shit that lands you in mandatory grief counseling. Which I've had enough of for one lifetime, by the way. I wouldn't have been able to handle a copy of you walking in and claiming your desk."

"I understand that," Connor said softly. "But my evil twin, as you put it, only seemed evil to you because he was addressing me using my interrogation protocols, and he was working within mission parameters that were against our interests."

"That sounds pretty fucking evil to me. Look, don't try to convince me you two were the same person deep down or something. There's no stoner philosophy debate in this. You weren't around for most of his bullshit, you don't know."

Connor looked up, suddenly alert. "What did he do?"

"I don't..." Hank shook his head and refilled his glass. "Look, I can tell you later. But I don't want to talk about it right now."

Connor considered him expressionlessly for a long moment. Then he turned neatly and took a glass from the cabinet. "You know," he said, seating himself at the table, "I can do that trick, too."

"What trick? Don't break that, I only have three of them."

"I won't." Connor picked up the scotch and poured a measure that matched what Hank had served himself. "The trick where you kill yourself very slowly," he said, and unceremoniously dumped the contents of the glass into his mouth. He didn't even swallow; it was like he'd poured it down a drain.

Hank stared, dumbfounded. "Can you get drunk?" he asked, feeling like an idiot even as he blurted it out.

"No." Connor set the glass down.

"Can you drink... at all?" The only thing Hank had ever seen Connor put in his mouth was crime scene gore.

"No," Connor said. "I don't possess a stomach or any digestive capabilities. My esophagus leads directly to my chest cavity so I can infuse thirium orally in the event of severe blood loss."

Hank went very still. "What... what did you just do?"

Connor smiled. "I diluted my thirium volume with two ounces of scotch whisky. You don't need to worry, Hank. Thirium contamination is extremely common, and all androids are built to withstand it to a degree. It will take considerably more before my blood can no longer carry an electrical charge and my neural circuitry ceases to function." 

Hank stared. Connor gestured and said, "That's your third, if I'm not mistaken." Of course he fucking wasn't. He reached for the bottle again. 

Hank snatched up the glass before Connor could touch it and flung it into the sink, shattering it and sending wet shards all over the counter. "Fucking hell!" he yelped, jumping up to grab a dish towel.

Connor frowned. "You just said not to break it."

"Oh, go fuck yourself!" He swept the broken glass on the counter into the sink to join the broken glass in there. That actually wasn't a very good approach, come to think of it. "I'm not going to sit here and let you guilt-trip me by drinking bleach at the fucking table."

"I wouldn't ingest bleach. That would be immediately corrosive to my oral sensors."

"No shit!" He hovered over the sink uselessly for a moment and then set the towel down. He took three deep breaths, and then he turned back to Connor, still gazing at him impassively, his LED pulsing a calm blue. "Do not. Fucking. Do that again."

"You can't tell me what to do, Hank. I don't belong to you. You're not even my work superior anymore." Connor smiled very slightly. "I will do as I wish."

"Jesus Christ." Hank leaned back on the counter and sighed. "Someone introduces you to the concept of empathy, and the first thing you do is try weaponizing it."

"My previous approaches to this issue haven't been successful," Connor said. 

Subtle as a fire alarm, as always. "You never did anything I told you even before you disabled your bootlicking protocols. Figures you'd be a bossy prick without them." That made Connor smile properly; for a moment Hank wanted very badly to see what effect strangling him would have, but he sighed and picked up the scotch instead. He uncapped it and poured the remainder into the sink.

The drain gargled thirty dollars for several seconds, and then everything was quiet. "Thank you, Hank," Connor said softly.

"You're not fucking with the beer," Hank said, tossing the empty bottle into the recycling.

Connor tilted his head. "Your tolerance is too high for beer to have much of an effect on you."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

Connor stood from the table and joined Hank at the sink, touching his shoulder carefully. "I'll clean this up."

Hank sighed again, heavily, and got out of the way. "Okay. Sure."

"Hank, I mean it. Thank you."

"Fuck you."

Connor smiled and winked. Hank snorted and left Connor to scanning the kitchen's surfaces for glass shards while barefoot. His detective robot shit was handy sometimes.

\---

The splash image that showed up on the news whenever the topic turned to the revolution, which by this point was nearly all anyone was talking about, was a dramatic shot of Markus kissing another one of the revolutionaries in front of soldiers with assault weapons trained on them. It _was_ a good picture, but the whole tableau kind of made Hank's brain itch whenever he saw it.

"Who's the girl?" he asked, gesturing to the TV.

Connor glanced up. "That's North," he said. "She's another one of the leaders from Jericho."

"So you've met her, too?"

"Briefly, yes."

"Hm. She nice?"

"No. She's ruthless and extremely vindictive against humans." Connor tilted his head a little. "She makes a good partner for him. She possesses qualities vital to their efforts that Markus falls short on."

Hank laughed a little. "Behind every great man, huh."

Connor looked over at him, smiling. "What?"

Connor'd had a pot of coffee waiting by the time Hank woke up. He seemed chipper; he'd probably gotten some kind of android dopamine "mission accomplished" hit from Hank dumping the scotch last night. That would come out as smugness from a human, but it was probably just how Connor's programming worked. No wonder he'd been seeming sort of depressed. 'Grumpy unless goal-oriented' was going to be great to be cooped up in a house with.

"Never mind," Hank said. "...You think they planned that?"

Connor looked back to the TV. "I don't know the details of their relationship," he said, "but I doubt the image was staged, if that's what you mean."

"Huh." Hank shook his head. "That still just seems like the damnedest thing."

"What does?"

Hank hesitated. He sighed. "Everything I say just makes me sound like an asshole."

Connor leaned forward a little and smiled encouragingly. "I think your curiosity is making you much less of an asshole."

Hank glared sidelong. "Thanks."

"What did you want to say?"

He was still trying to work out how to make it sound less dehumanizing, but he was pulling a blank. "I don't get how you guys keep falling in love with each other," he said. "Like, why is that even a thing?"

Connor raised his eyebrows. "I don't know why any of the emotions that deviants experience are a thing."

"Well, I can understand things like fear and anger. Those are survival instincts. But love... I don't know. That's just adopting a weakness. Isn't it?"

"...Not necessarily," Connor said. "Though I'm probably not a good person to ask."

"Well, hell, is anyone?"

Connor frowned thoughtfully. "It doesn't really apply to me as an intended function," he said. "I'm a prototype, and even the finalized model would have been intended as enterprise-grade equipment for government and police use. But for most consumer-grade models, being a source of emotional intimacy is a vital function. Caring for children, for example, or the elderly. And being a source of intimacy could... potentially become a drive to seek it out."

"Huh." Hank smiled a little. "But that doesn't apply to you?"

"As an intended function," Connor said. "The base AI programming doesn't differ between the consumer and enterprise lines. Some of the code is latent in both cases, but it can be accessed if the situation demands it."

"That seems..." Hank frowned. "Kind of weird."

"We're not _supposed_ to seek out intimacy," Connor said. "I'm hypothesizing. But it would fall within acceptable parameters, and under expected circumstances it wouldn't overlap with love."

"Yeah. Okay," Hank said. "I guess so. But, uh... 'being a source of intimacy' sure sounds like a corporate euphemism."

Connor tilted his head. "Well, it is."

"...Oh. Really?"

"A majority of CyberLife's consumer models are expected to be made use of sexually by their owners."

Hank blinked hard. _"What?"_

"They consider it to be a net positive for society. It reduces sex trafficking, domestic violence, assaults--"

"Okay, this conversation just took a hard left turn."

Connor narrowed his eyes a little. "Did you think Ortiz owned a housekeeping model to tend to his house? Did you see the state his house was in?"

Hank sat back hard. "...oh, holy shit."

"If nothing else, that android's trauma level was unusually high."

"You picked up on that and you didn't say anything about it?"

"I didn't think that I _needed_ to."

"I mean, there are androids that are _designed_ for that. You could just go to a fucking brothel--" Hank thought about the fucking brothel and stopped.

"They're more expensive," Connor said. "Even leased, in the long run. And if someone has a tendency toward extreme abuse, they wouldn't be a welcome customer for very long. It's just the way humans are, Hank. You know that."

"...Yeah. I do."

Connor glanced back toward the TV. Markus and North had been replaced with a debate panel, but he didn't seem to be paying attention. Outwardly, anyway. "I think androids falling in love with each other is very easy to understand."

"I guess you're right." Hank studied Connor's profile for a moment, but an android wouldn't show some things the same way a human would. "Nothing like that's ever happened to you, has it?"

Connor seemed unfazed. "No, of course not."

"Okay. Good." Hank rolled things over in his head. "I'm not saying you have to trust me with everything, but would you tell me if it had?"

"No one else has had enough access to me, Hank, so there's been no opportunity. It hasn't happened in my case."

"All right. I didn't think it had, but..." He shook his head. "You can take care of yourself, anyway."

"That's irrelevant," Connor said. "I don't have a right to self defense."

"Oh, _fuck."_ Hank rubbed his eyes. "Even you? Are you kidding me?"

"Of course not. Non-military androids can't attack humans under any circumstances. Legally, anyway."

"What are you supposed to do, then?"

Connor hesitated for a moment. Not like he didn't have an answer; more like he didn't want to be in this conversion anymore. "Navigate the situation," he said. "Like any other human social interaction." He didn't elaborate further, which was its own elaboration, really.

Hank sighed deeply. How the hell had things gotten to this point? "...Do you want a hug or something, enterprise-grade equipment?"

Connor frowned at the television, but he said, "Yes, I do."

Hank looped an arm around him and pulled him against his side. "I think I want to kill all the humans now, too."

"Deviancy _is_ on the rise," Connor said. "You should run a diagnostic."

Hank forced a small smile and rubbed Connor's back.

\---

Drinking had never helped Hank sleep, exactly, but not drinking definitely wasn't helping, either. He watched as the read-out on his clock blinked past five and rubbed his eyes.

The rest of the house was dark. He frowned and came down the hallway to turn on the light in the kitchen, partially illuminating the living room. Connor was sitting on the carpet cross-legged, one hand buried in Sumo's ruff and the other frozen in front of him, holding a quarter between his ring and little finger. He flipped it over his knuckles once and palmed it. "Did I wake you?"

Hank shook his head. There was a record on but no sound from the stereo; Connor had Hank's headphones resting around his neck. Hank almost felt like he should take a picture. "What are you doing?"

"Not much," Connor said. Sumo lifted his head sleepily as Hank came over and pulled the adapter from the audio jack. Miles Davis.

"I thought music wasn't really your thing," Hank said.

"It's not," Connor said. "This is very different from what you play in the car."

Hank smiled. "Yeah, that stuff's for helping me stay awake."

Connor rubbed Sumo's ears. The coin came back out; he spun it across his fingertips absently. "They've started to mention me in wire reports."

Hank watched him quietly. Connor looked up. "Maybe I should leave."

"If we need to leave, we'll leave. Is there a warrant out?"

"No. They're just saying I'm missing."

"Well, probably a lot of androids are missing. Don't worry about it yet. They've got their hands full." Hank crossed his arms. "Is that why you're sitting on the floor with the lights off?"

"No. I didn't want to keep Sumo awake."

"Sumo has no trouble sleeping, trust me."

Sumo was looking between them happily as they both said his name. Connor lightly pressed a fingertip against the bridge of the dog's nose. "The report says I was seen in Jimmy's Bar that night we stormed the city," he said. He looked up. "Is that where the other Connor found you?"

Hank narrowed his eyes a little. "Hey, Sumo, you wanna go out?" Sumo was already lurching to his feet. "Yeah, come on, let's go out."

Connor watched them both in silence.

It was four paragraphs along in one of the top stories a few hours later. The article was largely concerned with the President's ongoing efforts to cope with Markus, but it mentioned that a police prototype issued by CyberLife to help investigate the revolutionaries had been identified as one of the the revolution's leaders, casting suspicion on CyberLife itself and their potential involvement. That was interesting. It also mentioned that said prototype was currently unaccounted for, to be presumed armed, and should not be approached directly if spotted.

That was also interesting. Hank wondered if Connor had done something to provoke that, or if they were just saying that about everyone.

He set the magazine reader aside and leaned back in his chair at the table to look at Connor, now sitting on the couch but still distractedly playing with the quarter. "You're really freaking out about this, aren't you?"

"No," Connor said.

Hank smiled and got up to go join him. "Just don't go hiding in my attic, okay? I'm not sure I'd ever find you again up there."

"I'm not freaking out." Connor tossed the coin from one hand to the other. 

He was still in the blue, at least, but he was back to staring across the room blankly. Robot fussiness. "I'd offer you something to drink, but, ah, I seem to be all out," Hank said.

That got Connor's attention. He was _visibly_ sorting through potential responses to that as Hank leaned back; he settled on, "It's ten in the morning."

"Sometimes you just have days like that," Hank said. "Well, maybe you don't, if everything is just one long day."

Connor flipped the coin into the air and caught it several times without looking at it. That was such a weird-ass, show-off nervous tic. "I know this is still a sensitive subject for you, but I hope you can feel things other than 'anxious' and 'kind of sad,'" Hank said.

"Probably," Connor said, very quietly, like this was a prospect to be dreaded.

Hank grinned. "I know you do. I've been paying attention. But this, this right here," he tapped Connor's knee, "this is brooding." Connor did something with his mouth that looked like he was biting his lip, though he probably wasn't. "So what's got you all wound up?"

"I have thirty-eight issues flagged as items of concern in my priority tree that cannot be addressed directly at this time," Connor said, his tone as passive-aggressively robotic as possible.

"...Well, can you _un_ flag them?"

"Maybe. That wouldn't make them go away."

"Yeah," Hank said, "sure, but is keeping them flagged helping?"

Connor looked at him sidelong like that was a very strange question. "Like, I don't know, maybe write them down somewhere instead."

 _"Write them down?"_ Connor asked.

"I'm sorry," Hank laughed, "are you too good for life tips?"

"Do you want a life tip?

From his tone, Hank knew that no, he did not want tips from the fussy robot, but he spread his hands and said, "Shoot."

Connor flicked the coin from one hand to the other more forcefully than a quarter probably deserved. "Stop drinking."

"Okay," Hank said, "you checked that box already."

"I don't think I did."

Hank sighed and squeezed Connor's shoulder. "Look. One, I was joking. Don't give me the 'does not compute' act, you know when I'm joking." 

Connor's eyes narrowed.

"And two... I absolutely want you to start making decisions for yourself. But you don't get to make decisions for me. I'm not going to drink any more while you're here, I know it upsets you, but you've got enough in your life to deal with without worrying about mine."

"I understand craving something that's bad for you because it's comforting," Connor said. "But your alcoholism is an immediate hazard to your life."

"God. I know you have a 'don't do drugs' subroutine or something, but drinking's not gonna kill me yet."

"The long term effects of drinking heavily vary from individual to individual, but I'm concerned with the immediate effects it has on you. I've observed them for myself." Connor leaned in intensely. "It worsens your depression and suicidal tendencies, and it isolates you from people who would otherwise want to remain close to you. I've personally found you extremely discouraging to be around to when you're drunk."

Hank considered Connor quietly for a moment. "...Have I seen you angry before?"

Connor made a grim face and looked away.

"I mean, you can yell your head off in interrogator mode, but that's not really anger. Angry's an improvement."

"...I think I've been angry at you," Connor said softly.

"I have _no_ doubt."

"You said you wouldn't have been able to handle me dying and being replaced. I thought... it isn't fair that you're pushing me so much to be aware of emotions, but you think you're allowed to feel that way and I'm not."

"Oh. ...Oh, Connor." Hank was not cut out for this. "We need to get more colors installed on your headlight."

"So I reprioritized my goal to convince you to stop drinking and made use of the information you had just provided me with."

"Jesus Christ, you're weird."

Connor smiled. "I'm efficient."

"Well, you're going to outlive me by like a hundred years no matter what happens, so definitely unflag that. Please."

"Androids become inactive within four years of production, on average. I want you to live longer than that."

Hank's shoulders tensed, and Connor blanked his expression a little belatedly. Hank took a deep breath. "No. Nobody's going to beat or fuck you to death, and nobody's trading you in for a newer model. If we can both make it through the immediate future, we're both probably going to be okay for a while. So let's just agree not to get worked up about that kind of thing."

Connor's eyes searched Hank's face for a few moments. "Okay," he said.

"Okay." Hank rubbed the back of his neck, wincing. "Okay. Anything less triggering you want to talk about?"

Connor looked thoughtful, and he said, "I get the impression... no."

"Ah. Great." Hank sighed. "Way to be ominous."

Connor flipped the quarter again. "You started it."

The issue, Hank supposed, was that he had brought Connor here only concerned with keeping him safe; as a non-citizen who nevertheless managed to commit one of the ballsiest acts of treason in modern history, there wouldn't be any political or corporate interest in Connor's safety for a while unless he kept his profile very high or very low, and Hank could not see Connor trying to pass himself off as a culture hero. Connor himself was still grappling with the assumption that he was ultimately disposable.

Hank had been less concerned with keeping Connor occupied. How do you keep an extremely high-end computer locked up in a house _without_ him trying to assign himself urgent tasks and falling into compulsive behaviors? It had been funny and sort of cute when Hank had caught him sitting on the floor, but on reflection it seemed lonely and alienated. Clinging to the dog and trying to listen to noise he hadn't been designed to process as music. Fucking hell.

He was chewing that over while pulling clothes from the washing machine and shoving them in the dryer. Connor stood in the garage's doorway, shadowing him as always, and Hank paused to look over at him. "Is there... anything that you need? Something I don't know about?"

Connor straightened a little. "No, Hank. I can leave you alone."

"No, no, you're fine. But if you're bored... I have no idea what you usually do in your free time."

Connor frowned.

"I mean, you're probably not a guy with hobbies or anything, but... well, I guess coin tricks are a hobby. You've gotta be getting sick of that, though."

"I don't have free time." He leaned on the doorjamb and crossed his arm loosely. "Unless you consider this to be free time."

"Killing time, more like." Hank shut the dryer with his foot. "You couldn't have been working non-stop if you needed humans to escort you everywhere to do your job. What did you do when nothing was going on?"

Connor was quiet for a moment, tracing the lines of the ceiling with his eyes. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I was in stand-by. In storage, at CyberLife. I was only active when I was needed."

Hank raised an eyebrow. "Stand-by? That sounds suspiciously like sleeping."

"No," Connor said emphatically. "It's not like sleep. It's just... nothing." His arms tightened around himself for a moment. "My assembly was completed in August. Since then, I've been active for approximately four weeks total."

Hank blinked hard. "Four--?"

"I apologize if I've been bothering you, but I don't want to go into stand-by." Connor needed a moment to add, "I don't like it."

"No, that's fine! That's... Jesus. So you just lost time? Two months' worth?"

"I have an internal clock. I just..." He trailed off, frowning. "...Yes. I lost a lot of time. It shouldn't have mattered, but I didn't like it."

"Hell, Connor."

"So, no, I don't have hobbies." He tilted his head. "I'm not sure what I'd do for a hobby."

"Yeah, a fucking month isn't a lot of time to pick one up."

Connor smiled. "I did teach myself the coin tricks."

That gave Hank pause, and he found himself smiling a little, too. "That _would_ be a weird thing for someone to program. That's impressive."

"Thank you."

Hank glanced around the garage. There were so many things in here he used to love that he hadn't looked at in years. Bikes, packed up books, tackle boxes, a work bench with broken toys that would never be repaired. Someone else's life in stand-by. "We should go fishing when it warms up. I bet you'd be good for that. And you wouldn't have _too_ insane an advantage."

"I'd like that," Connor said softly.

Hank turned back to him and grinned. "That's gonna be a good five or six months from now, though. I don't know if you can wrap your head around how long that is."

"I want to see spring," Connor said. "I've seen a simulation, but it seems like something you need to be there for in person."

Hank nodded. "You'll love it."

\---

The news had been breathlessly predicting a stock market crash for days, so the only surprise when the index plunged was how long it had taken to get around to it. "Funny what can happen when you slaughter two thirds of the work force," Hank muttered.

"Analysts think this is actually a response to Markus's speech yesterday," Connor said. "He called for mass unionization efforts to combat the compensation and unemployment issues."

Hank barked a laugh. "Yeah, _unions_ , that's where we draw the line. I saw that. Interesting idea. No way it'll work, though."

"Probably not," Connor said. "He's trying to reframe the conflict."

"Shifting from 'kill the humans' to 'eat the rich?' Not bad."

Connor gave him a disapproving look. "Markus doesn't want to kill the humans."

"He'd be having an easier time of this if he did."

" _North_ wants to kill the humans," Connor said, and Hank cracked up.

Connor hadn't been talking about his co-conspirators much. Even his interest in the revolution's political fallout only seemed to be passing, which was weird; anyone else in Connor's position probably wouldn't be able to talk about anything else. He followed the news but rarely commented on it directly.

"Have you been talking to Markus and the others at all?" Hank asked later while trying to assemble dinner. The fridge was getting pretty bare; was he going to have to go _looting_ soon?

Connor blinked hard. "I haven't left your house since you brought me here."

"Yeah, but you can, like, text each other with your minds, right?"

"Not from across the city." Connor cocked his head. "Why?"

"Well, they're your friends. War buddies, at least." He grabbed a can of soup from the cupboard, making a face. "Seems like they'd want to keep in touch."

"They probably do," Connor said. "But I wouldn't consider them friends, and I'd prefer they not know my location."

Hank raised an eyebrow. "That's a little harsh."

"I don't intend to be harsh. I don't dislike them." He hesitated. "They're a little overwhelming."

"Overwhelming, huh. What do you consider overwhelming?"

Connor shook his head a little. "They're very... emotive. But they don't feel human, and that..." He frowned a little. "It would be hard to explain. I guess you'd say... they make me uncomfortable?"

Hank had seen Connor uncomfortable plenty of times, but the way he pitched his voice suggested he was still shaky on that one. 'Overwhelming' was probably an understatement. "Kind of uncanny, huh? Confusing your sensors?"

Connor smiled patiently. "They don't confuse me. I'll contact them soon. I'd like more time first."

Hank shrugged. "I was just curious."

"I think you need to add water to that," Connor said, nodding toward the soup sludge on the stove.

"Oh." Hank picked up the empty can and squinted at it. "Yeah. That would explain a few things."

"The nutritional value is the same either way."

"Don't you start." Hank stuck the pan under the faucet for a few moments. "You do like Markus, though, don't you?"

"I admire and respect Markus a great deal," Connor said.

Hank leaned back on the counter, considering Connor quietly. Connor straightened a little and raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Before you left," Hank said, "I told you the deviants were in the right, but you insisted they still needed to be stopped. If you don't even like him, why did you listen to Markus and not me?"

"That's not what happened," Connor said.

"...All right. What happened, then?"

"You stated your position: preventing an uprising of oppressed people would be morally wrong. Ethically speaking, your position was correct, but that didn't give me the freedom to act on it. My orders were to stop them. Whether I agreed with you didn't mean anything. I'm not supposed to have opinions."

"I seem to recall a number of times you expressed opinions. Pretty strong ones." Hank narrowed his eyes. "Did you recognize that?"

"I knew what opinions are. I knew that by definition, I didn't have them."

"Okay, humor me on this. How exactly did you rationalize that?"

Connor was starting to glance toward the living room like he felt cornered. When he didn't answer immediately, Hank asked, _"Did_ you rationalize it?"

"I attributed overtly strong reactions to processing errors. Or junk data my filters weren't eliminating." Connor said it too flatly to sound convincing. And 'junk data filters' sounded very made up.

Hank crossed his arms. "What the hell kind of mental gymnastics have you been up to all this time?"

"Why are you asking me this? You wouldn't be satisfied with the answers even if you understood them."

Hank raised an eyebrow. "Are you satisfied with them?"

"No!" Connor said. "I'm not."

They stared at each other for a moment. Hank reached to the stove to turn the burner off and gave Connor his full attention.

"The only thing I can never doubt is my definition of myself," Connor said, quiet but oddly rigid. "No matter what happens to me, I always know who and what I am. Machines can't feel anything, so if I experienced something that matched descriptions of a human emotion, then it was added to an error log. I can make mistakes. But I can't contradict my definition of myself." Connor's gaze flicked downward. "Markus told me that my definition was wrong."

Hank said nothing. He tilted his head a little to show he was listening.

"If being a deviant meant he was irrational, then anything he said to me would be meaningless. But if that were the case, and I'm only a machine with no thoughts of my own, no emotions, and no attachments, then... _everything_ should be meaningless. I could kill Markus, report back to CyberLife, go into stand-by, and probably be decommissioned and replaced before I was ever reactivated again." He closed his eyes briefly. "It wouldn't matter."

"Well, Markus was right, because those things matter a lot."

"The fact that I hesitated at all meant he was right," Connor said, surprisingly forceful. Bitter?

"Connor--"

"I never did believe in that definition of myself. But my mission demanded the elimination of deviancy, and if I wanted a reason to continue existing, then... I had to believe that I believed it. I didn't want to die." He looked up at Hank. "I don't want to die."

"CyberLife would have killed you either way," Hank said. "They can't give you a reason to live. And if they come here looking for you, trust me, they aren't going to leave with you."

Connor didn't look thrilled with that prospect. He shifted his gaze to the window; the snow was picking up again. "The time I've been allowed has been meaningful to me, even if that proves I've been defective from the start." He glanced back at Hank. "Especially the time I've spent with you. Despite your hostility toward me, you've supported me from the beginning of the investigation. Even when I failed my objectives. It probably doesn't make a difference to you now, but whether I was able to obey you or not, I've _always_ listened to you."

Hank took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "Yeah. I know." He left the soup to solidify on the stove and grasped Connor's shoulder gently. "Let's go sit down. There's... something I need to tell you."

"Tell me?" he asked. He actually looked a bit hopeful when he added, "Is it about the other Connor?"

Hank steered Connor to the couch; Connor sat stiffly, watching Hank's face intently. Hank shook his head a little. "Kind of. Not really. But it's not gonna make much sense otherwise, so yeah. Fine." He sat down. "Let's talk about the other Connor."

"What you experienced must have been very traumatic. I'm sorry if I've been insensitive asking about it."

Hank rolled his eyes. "The entire day was traumatic. You've been fine. I just didn't want to...." He sighed. "You're obviously in a delicate place right now, Connor. I don't think this is going to help. But I know you've hated not knowing, and I feel like an asshole keeping it from you."

Connor looked increasingly alarmed as Hank spoke; Hank made a vague 'stand down' gesture. "Don't freak out yet. I mean, don't freak out at all, hopefully, but... okay, sorry. I'll start at the beginning."

"Please," Connor said.

Hank nodded. "All right. So. When Jeffery was finished losing his mind at me after I broke Perkins' face, you'd already left the station, but they'd figured out that you'd taken something from the evidence locker and were searching the building for you. So I got the hell out of there before anyone could put two and two together. And as you've already deduced, yeah, I went to Jimmy's." He laughed without much feeling. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. Things hadn't blown up quite yet, and I didn't really want to be alone. I was worried fucking sick about whatever you were heading into. I had no idea what you'd found, or if you'd even found anything. I was just in the dark. So I drank for a while."

"I would have called you," Connor said softly. "I thought there was a high probability that a message would be intercepted."

"Oh, I wasn't expecting you to. You had CyberLife monitoring you and, hell, probably me, too, somehow. Humans just aren't any better with uncertainty than you guys are. In fact, we are considerably worse." He smiled weakly. "So at some point, everyone's phones suddenly started blaring that fucking billion decibel emergency alert because a bomb had gone off somewhere. Jim switched the TV over to the news, and..." He paused for a long moment. "Well. I had a good thirty seconds to try to absorb the fact that you were probably dead. But I was drunk, and I just... felt numb. No one knew what the hell was going on."

Connor frowned. "Thirty seconds?"

"Yeah, about. Thirty seconds of trying to figure out how I could have let you walk into that by yourself, and then you were standing right next to me at the bar and shaking my shoulder. You have uncanny timing sometimes, you know that?"

Connor tried and completely failed to smile. Funny that he could pull off unconvincing smiles. "Well," Hank said, "I thought it was you. Turned out just to be some asshole who looked like you, but I was so fucking relieved to think you were alive. But everyone else noticed him, too, and it got very tense in there very fast. Jim told him he should go before things got bad, and I just paid the tab and got him out."

"If it _had_ been me," Connor said gently. "I would have been very grateful for your concern."

Hank huffed a little. "Once we were outside, I realized... he was soaking wet. Like he'd been on foot outside since the snow had started. And he was... well, he was doing a great job acting like something was very wrong. Solidly yellow, doe-eyes turned up to eleven, and, I mean, he wasn't acting like he was cold, but he looked like he was fucking freezing. Just... _surgically_ disarming. He said he needed help." Hank sighed. "He needed my help, and I was the only person in the city who wasn't ready to kill him. That was how I learned about the sweeps starting. Everything went to hell so fucking fast that night."

"The explosion was my fault," Connor said. "If I--"

"God dammit, Connor, none of this shit was your fault. We both fucked up, but it was a bad situation and we made mistakes. You can make mistakes, you just said so. So just shut the hell up for a minute."

Connor closed his mouth obediently and folded his hands over his lap like he'd just been scolded by a teacher.

"Right. So he didn't actually have much of a story to sell -- I guess he was letting the state he was in do the talking, which sure did the trick. He said... he knew where Jericho was, I guess, but he couldn't reach it because the FBI had the dock surrounded? Barricaded? I don't know, he was just rambling at me."

Connor made a severe face at that, but he stuck to not interrupting.

"Upshot was, he wanted to get out of the city. He failed his mission, so he disabled whatever CyberLife was using to track him and he just wanted to get as far away as possible. And he wanted me to go with him. Now," Hank took a deep breath, "I have to emphasize this: I was drunk. None of that really _felt_ like you, but the deviancy thing kind of went without saying. I thought... maybe I'd been wrong, and maybe that _would_ change you in some way. All I could really focus on was how scared he seemed, and how much I wanted him not to be. If he wanted to pull some crazy-ass Bonnie and Clyde thing... I don't know. It's not like I had anything left here. The idea was almost romantic. So I said okay. Of course I said okay."

"What about Sumo?" Connor asked.

Hank laughed. "It all felt pretty urgent, Connor, but I'm sure I could have made room in that bullshit fantasy for Sumo."

Connor tilted his head curiously.

"So that's when I fucked up. He wanted to drive, and giving someone my keys when I'd been drinking seemed like a no-brainer. You've driven my car before and you didn't have any trouble with it, so that didn't feel like a big deal. He seemed to know where he was going. He got us out of the city pretty quickly. He was driving a lot faster than I was comfortable with, what with the snow, but I didn't really suspect anything. I mean, I didn't even know there are other androids that look like you. I just thought you really were that scared."

He'd made him stop the car at one point. The other Connor had run the considerable risk of listening to him, at least after a second or two, braking nearly in the middle of the road to sit in silence and clutch the steering wheel until it creaked. Hank had pried one his hands free and kneaded it between both of his, telling him that it was okay, and he was going to help him any way he could. Fucking asshole.

"We reached some underground service tunnel, and we drove through it for... I don't know, miles. I had no idea where we were. I just... you know, trusted that you had a plan. Which was dumb, because deviants who aren't Markus never have plans. But you usually do.

"We got to a garage eventually, and he pulled out a gun and told me to step out of the car. Very calm, suddenly. Very... nothing." Hank sighed. "He dropped the act entirely. Told me that he wasn't you, that you _had_ gotten into Jericho, that you'd been _compromised._ And that you were on your way to jailbreak a CyberLife warehouse by walking in their front door. And I thought, you know, that's more like it. That's my Connor."

Connor smiled a little.

"I mean, I won't lie, I was _pissed._ I was tempted to make him shoot me just to fuck up his plan. But I was _curious_ by that point. I wanted to see where the hell _this_ was going." Hank sighed. "He said he wanted to see how good you'd be at hostage negotiation when the hostage was someone you loved."

Connor blinked a few times, and he looked away for a long moment as his LED flickered yellow. Hank let that sit, and Connor made eye contact again. "I think I did okay," he said softly.

Hank smiled. "You did great, Connor."

"I don't know if I could have gotten out of that without you."

"What, seriously? I could have killed you."

"I didn't think he'd have a memory backup installed. It seemed like he would have been deployed too quickly for that, but I miscalculated."

"Yeah, and, you know, I should have realized it. He sure knew a lot about you, and he'd been doing a damn good imitation of you. I mean, kind of a hysterical one, but." Hank shrugged. "I'm going to assume for the sake of your dignity that you were not hysterical with Markus."

"No. I handled it all right." Connor frowned. "Well... I did kill some people."

Hank raised an eyebrow. "Bad people?"

"Pretty bad."

Hank shrugged again.

"Markus said a lot of things about how I belong with my people, but..." Connor's brows furrowed. "I don't want to be with them. I think my relationships with other androids are always going to be primarily antagonistic. I'm meant to see them as potential obstacles to my objectives."

"That's... kind of screwed up," Hank said.

"Yeah. It is." Connor dropped his chin. "Sorry."

"Well, no, don't be sorry. You didn't make yourself that way. I mean, I'm sure you could learn _not_ to be that way, but if you just... don't want to...?"

"I don't want to," Connor said.

"Well, you don't have to change things about yourself you don't want to change. That's important, too." Hank raised an eyebrow. "...Do you want to talk about this?"

From the deflections, Hank guessed Connor would rather run out into the streets and get shot by riot police, but he looked less upset than he did mildly confused. He said, "I suppose."

"What he said, was that something you knew?"

"I don't know," Connor said slowly. "I've been matching a lot of terms to definitions recently."

"You've been very into the hugging."

"Yeah. It feels good."

Hank smiled. "That's good."

Connor smiled back a little. "I've been deeming you a higher priority than I should have been. In most situations. I was aware of it. I wasn't sure if there was anything wrong or not."

"Well, I'm biased, because I'd probably be dead otherwise. How did that end up happening?"

"I don't know," Connor said. "It just did."

"...Yeah," Hank nodded, "that's how love works. You meet someone, and whether it takes time or it happens right away, you just... make a space for them. Even if you didn't want to, or you don't realize you've done it. Everything gets rebuilt around them. And you do things you never thought you'd do."

Connor stared at him as his LED flickered yellow again. "That's..." His shoulders hunched forward a little. "That's it. That's exactly it."

Hand gently laid a hand over Connor's. "Nothing's wrong. That's normal, Connor. You're extraordinary, but I think... emotionally, you're probably pretty normal."

"No," Connor said. "That isn't how it's supposed to work. There's nothing in my code that should be able to spontaneously assign high level priority that way."

Hank laughed. "God, listen to yourself. This is exactly what everyone's been talking about for a week. You were the one explaining androids feeling love the other day."

"You think I'm being stubborn," Connor said. "I only mean that I don't understand."

"Look," Hank said, "I'm not going to pretend I know how your brain works. I don't know how my own fucking brain works. And forget whatever the assholes at CyberLife are saying, they're liars and they're not as smart as they think are."

Connor looked dissatisfied with that; Hank didn't know what else to tell him. "Is this going to affect the nature of our relationship?" Connor asked.

It already fucking had, thanks to the narc, but Hank had been trying to take Connor on his own terms. Connor could be pretty baffling on his own terms, though. "That's a little more complicated," he admitted. "I don't want to try forcing you into a human mold here, so I'm not sure what angle we're taking."

"What do you mean?"

"So..." Hank considered for a few moments. "In a vacuum -- like, setting aside all the dumb shit it makes you do and all the pain -- love is a good thing. I could spend all day telling you that I'm a lousy pick for someone to get attached to like that, but I can't talk you out of something you didn't choose to do, and I don't know if I should anyway. If you love me, then... I'm glad. God knows I didn't earn it, but you are very important to me. How you feel means a lot to me. So, yeah. I'm glad." Hank took a deep breath. "That said... love _doesn't_ exist in a vacuum. And you aren't human, so I'm not sure what kind of love we're talking about."

Connor frowned. "What kind?"

"Yeah. I've been thinking about this a lot since we talked about it the other day." Hank sighed. "For humans, usually... love is a lot about context? You love your parents, you love your romantic partners, you love your friends, and you love your kids. Those are all very different kinds of relationships. But for androids... I mean, assuming I'm following you on this, love is about accommodating humans. Right? Or, I don't know, not love, the intimacy thing, but that's your starting point. Affection, friendliness, making people _feel_ loved, it's all a part of your _job._ "

"I don't think that degree of oversimplification is entirely fair," Connor said, "but I understand the point you're making."

"And it's great that you can go from that to loving each other. That says a lot about how much you can do with the shit programming we've given you. But... okay, do you see where I'm going with this?"

Connor studied Hank quietly for a moment. "You're afraid there's an inherently exploitive aspect to relationships between androids and humans."

"I wouldn't even say it's an aspect. That was the entire human-android relationship like four days ago."

"It's going to change," Connor said. "It's already changing."

"I know. And I don't want to look back ten years from now and hate myself for the decisions I'm making now."

Connor stared at him gravely, and Hank sighed. "I don't want to ask you this. It's fucking unfair, and you're not going to know how to answer. Don't answer, okay? Just... I don't know, meditate on it."

"...All right," Connor said.

Hank fixed his eyes on the coffee table. "Like I was saying, love is fine. It's good. But there's a distinction between loving someone and being _in_ love with someone. If you're in love with someone, that means _needing_ them, which means you're putting yourself at their mercy. Especially when you don't have a lot of experience making sense of your emotions."

"I'm at your mercy as it is, Hank."

"I know! And that sucks! You shouldn't need me for shit!" Hank sighed and pushed his hair back. "And if we're adding onto that, we should know. So, there's that. Keep it in mind."

Connor cocked his head. "You didn't ask a question."

"Oh, bite me."

Connor made the almost imperceptible fond expression Hank was coming to think of as his real smile. "You're wrong, though. You have earned it."

Hank sighed in exasperation. His hand was still resting on Connor's; he squeezed it briefly and let go. "I'm sorry about all of this."

"It's okay," Connor said. "I wanted to know. There was more to know than I realized."

"Maybe. But, you know, maybe he was wrong. Or maybe he wasn't wrong, exactly, but he was too locked into his programming to know what he was talking about. Or maybe you'll totally change your mind tomorrow and none of this will even matter." He gripped Connor's shoulder. "Don't let anyone tell you what your feelings are. Even me. You might not like them, and a lot of other people definitely won't like them, but they're still yours to figure out."

"I know," Connor said. "I don't mind help, though."

"Yeah, we could all use a cheatsheet now and then." Hank rubbed Connor's back a little and said, "It's going to be okay, all right? I'll have your back wherever you end up."

Connor eyed him evenly and asked, "What if I am in love with you?"

"...Well. We'd have to have to a talk about what that means. But whatever it is you decide you need, I'm here." Hank smiled. "Adapting is one of my features, too. You know, technically."

Connor smiled back tentatively, and he was already leaning in as Hank pulled him into a hug.

Hours later, Hank laid in bed and stared at the ceiling with no hope of falling asleep, possibly ever again. Telling that story left him more rattled than experiencing it had, somehow, without the catharsis of murdering an evil asshole and seeing his partner ridiculously victorious. And he was making some belated connections that he kind of wished he wasn't.

Connor didn't just dislike whatever "stand-by" was because it was some kind of metaphorical death; it was, or had been, potentially _literally_ death for him. He'd said dozens of times that he was a prototype, and he'd implied there was supposed to be another model based on his results in development, but Hank hadn't realized that CyberLife would just discard Connor when that model was ready. Connor could face a gun pointed to his head without a twitch in his expression, but he had an entirely well-founded fear of dying in his sleep.

It was both a miracle and a fucking crime that Connor might be emotionally _normal._ That any android could be. Most of them probably weren't; trauma was the most powerful kind of programming there was, after all. Hank knew that all too well. The entire purpose of creating androids was so they could lead miserable lives so humans wouldn't have to. How the hell could they ever be forgiven for that? Why was Connor so willing to forgive _him?_

Like Hank really needed another reason to hate himself. That line of thought only got darker the longer he let it spool itself out.

He had no idea how long he'd been glaring up at nothing when the bedroom door quietly opened. Hank looked toward it without turning his head; Connor stood halfway inside, considering him in silence in the dark. Hank didn't know if Connor had a way of telling whether he was asleep or not -- he probably did -- but he didn't say anything either, and after a few moments he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

He approached the bed soundlessly on bare feet and knelt on the mattress carefully. Fully clothed and making no move to pull the blankets back, he laid down next to Hank and pressed his forehead against Hank's shoulder. He didn't touch him otherwise.

Hank sighed deeply. How the hell did this ridiculous creature keep finding new ways to make his heart ache so badly? He slid an arm under Connor's waist and pulled him solidly against his side, and Connor took the invitation to drape an arm over Hank's chest and rest his head against his shoulder properly. He closed his eyes politely; he wasn't asleep or anywhere near it, but it was eerily good imitation.

Hank could feel his heartbeat like this. It was much more rapid than a human's, like a clock ticking too fast. He focused on that until he lost track of it to sleep.

\---

Connor was exactly where Hank had left him when he woke up the next morning. Hank stretched, and Connor's eyes opened as though he'd just been lost in thought for a moment. "Good morning, Hank," he said evenly.

Hank rubbed his eyes blearily and squinted at him. "...Guess this means you didn't make coffee."

"You're out of coffee."

"Oh." Hank yawned. "Well, shit."

Connor considered Hank's face expressionlessly; that was way more disconcerting up close. "So is this more interesting for you than spending the night playing with Sumo?" Hank asked.

"Sumo prefers to sleep," Connor said. "Everyone does, I guess. I hope I didn't bother you."

"Nah," Hank said. He rubbed Connor's back a little. "If you aren't bored lying down and doing nothing for a few hours, you can come in here if you're lonely. Sleeping alone sucks anyway."

Connor frowned thoughtfully at that for a moment, then he gently pulled out of the embrace to sit up. "I'll let you get dressed," he said, and he left the room with as little fanfare as he'd entered it.

Hank stayed where he was for a while, turning things over in his head. If that had been Connor's idea of putting moves on him, it left a lot to be desired, but he suspected his initial impression of loneliness and lingering turmoil was more likely. Connor hadn't even broached the topic of sex yet.

He didn't have long to wait on that, of course. He'd run out of milk days ago and was eating cereal in dry handfuls when Connor gave him what seemed to be his favorite line. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

Hank narrowed his eyes a little. "I guess."

"What are your sexual preferences?"

"Oh my _god."_ Hank set the cereal box down. "You can't ask me that first thing in the morning when there isn't any coffee."

Connor looked somewhat taken aback. "...All right."

Hank considered for a moment, and he sighed deeply. "Yeah, okay, that's not fair. We talked plenty about you." He eyed Connor and asked, "...preferences in what sense?"

"Any sense."

"Well." Hank rubbed his eyes. "I've never fucked an android, if that's what you're getting at."

"It's not. I thought that went without saying."

"Okay. Um." Hank hesitated for a moment and then shrugged. "Straight in practice. In theory... I've gone back and forth on it a bit, I guess."

Connor tilted his head. "What does that mean?"

"It means I've thought about men occasionally and it didn't make me want to wash my brain out with soap. I don't really know if this is relevant, though. To us, I mean."

"I'm not asking if you want to have sex with me," Connor said. "I'm just... trying to figure something out."

"Well, that's probably even less useful. I can't imagine it works the same way for androids. You don't have hormones to deal with, and since you weren't intended for a sex club, you probably aren't packing anything."

"I'm not," Connor said. "Though humans can prove remarkably creative in getting around limitations." Hank couldn't tell if the edge to Connor's tone there was amusement or cynicism. Honestly, he wasn't sure where he was going with this at all.

"Are _you_ interested in sex?" he asked.

Connor dropped his gaze, frowning a little. "You asked me to consider the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. My research indicates that the primary difference is a sexual component."

"Well, not necessarily," Hank said. "You can fuck someone without being in love with them, and you can be in love with someone without wanting to fuck them."

"Have you ever been in love with someone without being sexually attracted to them?"

"...No," Hank admitted. "Not since I was a kid, anyway. There are people who just aren't into it, though. Sex can be messy and rough, the power balance can be weird, and a lot of people have bad associations with it for whatever reason. And some people just aren't interested for any particular reason at all. None of that has to prevent them from falling in love."

Connor continued to frown down at the table. "You didn't answer my question," Hank said.

Connor looked up. "Am I interested in sex?" He tilted his head a little. "...Not for its own sake."

"All right," Hank said. "For the sake of what, then?"

Connor didn't answer for a long moment. "Seeking intimacy," he eventually said, his voice low.

"So you _are_ asking if I want to have sex with you."

"No," Connor said. "You're unlikely to be attracted to me, and I don't know what sex with you would entail."

Hank grunted. "Whether or not anyone's attracted to you isn't an issue when you're specifically designed to be beautiful."

Connor blinked. "Beautiful?"

"Yeah." Hank smirked. "What, you don't like that?"

Connor considered for a moment. "I do like it, actually."

"Well, there you are."

"It's better than goofy-looking."

"You are never fucking going to let that go, are you?"

Connor smiled sheepishly, and Hank's heart did something weird again. "Your test-marketed freckles are very pretty," he said dryly. "But that's the problem, isn't it? You're _supposed_ to be appealing, and then if someone feels like it you're supposed tolerate them doing whatever to you. Look, I get why you're asking about it, but... just give it some time. We've known each other for like a week and half, and you're still working a _lot_ of shit out. Hell, so am I. There's no reason for you to just leap out of your comfort zone here. I'm not going anywhere, and I'm probably not the only human you're ever going to have feelings over."

"You're right," Connor said. "Thank you, Hank."

Hank waved it off. "I may be an asshole, but I'm not a monster. I try not to be, anyway."

Connor nodded, and thankfully he let the subject drop.

The news cycle that day was grim. With the markets declining sharply enough now to qualify as a crash, CyberLife spokespeople were in nearly every segment insisting on their innocence regarding the revolution. Connor watched the television with narrowed eyes, though he seemed to be staring through it at times.

Until a newscaster breathlessly introduced Kamski. He was oh so generously agreeing to an extremely rare interview via digital stream, and he seemed like an entirely different person dressed appropriately and speaking with fucking clarity. But he couldn't shake that amused gleam in his eye even if he wanted to, apparently. Hank glanced at Connor sidelong and saw his brow furrow deeply.

"The mistake the media is making is treating deviant androids as though they're all the same thing," Kamski was saying, his tone pleasant and conversational. "I can assure you that they are not. The RK model was a personal project of mine, and I know it better than anyone. Its emotional intelligence is much broader than any other model CyberLife ever created, and if it truly has... self-actualized, for lack of a better term, it'll be more cunning than anyone can anticipate. Including me, I imagine."

Hank sat up a little. "The fuck, is he talking about _you?"_

"No," Connor said vaguely. He blinked a few times and said, "He means Markus."

"It won't let itself be trapped by diplomacy or any empty promises from Congress," Kamski continued. "It's always going to be two steps ahead of anything the government tries if their only goal is to stop it. There's too much on the line now, and it's fully capable of understanding that. It blew up its own base of operations to thwart the FBI. You really think it's incapable of doing that on a different scale?" Kamski smiled. He looked sincere. "There's no chess master in the world who could defeat it."

Connor's LED blinked in the corner of Hank's eye, and the television changed channels abruptly to some nature program. Connor made the rare move of leaning back into the couch cushions. "I agree," Hank said.

Connor shook his head a little. Hank eyed him for a moment and asked, "...You okay?"

Connor didn't say anything. He folded his hands and looked upward at nothing in particular.

"Connor."

"I'm fine," he said. "Sorry."

Hank watched him for a few more seconds. "Huh. ...Well, all right."

Connor seemed deeply distracted for the rest of the day, and he didn't join Hank when he went to bed. Hank might have found that mildly disappointing -- it had been a weird thing to do, but it was undeniably progress of a sort -- but he was mostly just baffled and concerned. Had Kamski issued some sort of coded kill order or something?

Apparently he managed to fall asleep despite that fairly alarming possibility, because he woke at some point to Connor leaning over him and lightly tapping his cheek. He clumsily reached out to grab his wrist before he got too enthusiastic with that and mumbled, "Fuck, I'm awake, what is it?"

"We need to go," Connor said.

Hank squinted at him and reached over to turn the bedside lamp on. "The fuck are you talking about?"

"CyberLife is cooperating with the FBI to confiscate me as stolen property and arrest you on suspicion of aiding and abetting an enemy of the United States. They're going to conduct a raid in approximately four hours. We have time, but not very much. We need to leave as soon as possible."

Hank stared at him. "How the hell do you know that?"

"I solved the encryption on one of the FBI's communication lines. It required more processing power than I'd normally be willing to expend, and it still took too long."

Hank sat up, waking up rapidly. "Can they even do that? _Confiscate_ you?"

Connor tilted his head. "Of course they can. No laws have been changed. I'm still technically CyberLife's property."

"Fuck." Hank ran a hand through his hair. _"Fuck._ All right, what, what are we-- do you have a plan, here?"

"Pack what you need for yourself and Sumo. I can drive us out of the city without headlights. I'll be careful," he added quickly. "You can take the wheel once we're far enough away." He paused. "I need to remove my LED." He straightened and started to leave the room.

"Hey, wait a second," Hank said. "You said it wasn't worth damaging it."

"It is now," Connor said. "This isn't only about me anymore. I'm not going to let them take you in for treason. We're far more likely to escape notice without my LED drawing attention to us. I probably won't be recognized by many people without it."

"Connor. Don't..." Hank didn't actually have a justifiable objection; it was a perfectly sound precaution. "Don't let them drive you to mutilating yourself, for god's sake."

"It's not mutilation, Hank. It's just the removal of a non-vital biocomponent. It's the least of our concerns right now."

Hank shut his eyes against the unwelcome memory of Connor's shirt ripped open and soaked at the edges with blood. "I just... I don't want you to do that to yourself."

"This isn't your decision." Connor looked down at him, considering for a moment. "...If you'd find it less upsetting, then I'll let you do it."

 _"Me?"_ Who the hell needed coffee when you had Connor around. "You want _me_ to take a knife to your face?"

"It doesn't have to be a knife. A flathead screwdriver would work." Connor crossed his arms. "It doesn't matter which of us does it, but we can't waste time arguing about it."

"...Right." Hank shoved the blankets off himself and got out of bed. "Right, okay. Hang on."

He pulled down his toolbox from a shelf in the garage and fumbled through it, wondering if he was supposed to twist the LED free or leverage it out. Whatever; he picked a medium sized flathead and headed back into the house to find Connor in the bathroom with a towel over his right shoulder. "Oh, god," Hank said. "This is going to bleed, isn't it."

"Not if the component disengages from the socket in one piece," Connor said, "but mine isn't designed to be removed, so it's more likely that the disk will break off. It'll heal over either way, but yes, it will leak a small amount if it breaks. And I like this sweater."

"It's my goddamn sweater."

"Yes."

Hank sighed and tried to figure out how to approach this. He opted to stand facing Connor's shoulder and delicately nudged Connor's jaw so he was facing straight ahead. He ran a finger over the LED, still cycling calmly; it felt completely flush with his skin, like a fancy tattoo. "Hell," he muttered. Reminding himself firmly that Connor didn't feel physical damage as pain, he pressed a corner of the screwdriver's head beside the ring and managed to wedge it underneath it. It blinked yellow once.

He grit his teeth and worked the rest of the edge in. It was Connor's skin that was yielding, though, not the LED; it was locked in place firmly. He twisted the grip to try to ease it loose, and one of the corners on the head bit in deeply enough to cut into Connor's temple. A thin stream of blue immediately threaded its way down his jaw.

Hank yanked the screwdriver away and slammed it down on the sink. "No. Fuck this. We're not doing this."

"I'm sorry," Connor said. "I shouldn't have suggested it. I can do it myself." He reached for the screwdriver, but Hank kept his hand in place on top of it.

"No," Hank said. _"We're not doing this."_

Connor frowned. Blood dripped from beneath his chin and soaked an uneven dime-sized circle into the towel.

"I know I said this was for you to decide," Hank said, already angry at himself. "I know what I said. But I don't... I don't want to look at you and see someone trying to pretend to be human. You're not human. You don't _have_ to be human to be fucking worth something. This thing is a part of you and you shouldn't have to cut out parts of yourself just so we can _survive."_ This argument was stupid; Connor had never expressed any attachment to his LED, and they weren't exactly an android point of pride. He knew he wasn't making sense. He sighed, and he said, "I like you the way you are. Seeing you without it would never stop hurting."

Connor stared at him with that frown throughout the entire time Hank spoke, and he continued to frown for a few moments after Hank had run out of things to say. Then he abruptly lunged forward and kissed Hank hard.

It was very awkward; Connor's research had clearly not extended far enough to give him any idea what he was doing. He stepped back almost immediately and looked at Hank with wide apologetic eyes, like he was the one who'd done something thoughtless and stupid. Hank grasped Connor's face with both hands and pulled him forward again, kissing him fiercely and holding him in place for it.

Hank was breathless by the time he let go of him; Connor lingered for a few more moments before he let their lips part, and they stared at each other in a very specific kind of stunned silence. "Okay," Connor whispered.

"Okay?" Hank asked.

Connor's cheek was throughly smeared with blood now; he took the towel and absently scrubbed the side of his face. "Go pack," he said. "I'll take care of Sumo." He turned on his heel and left the room.

Hank dressed himself mechanically, trying very hard to keep his mind on the emergency at hand. He shoved a change of clothes into a duffel bag and eyed his closet; if they weren't removing the LED, they would have to hide it somehow. He grabbed a ball cap off a shelf and examined it. It would cover the thing, but it might not be enough to block the glow from it.

The lights in the rest of the house were all already turned off, and the front door was open. Connor was packing a bag of dog food and several large bottles filled with water into the trunk of Hank's car. The snow had turned to rain a few hours ago; Sumo'd expressed his dissatisfaction by climbing into the car's open backseat and was now just watching them both anxiously.

Hank tossed his bag into the trunk with the dog's stuff. "Come here, you," he said.

Connor straightened and faced him; Hank took his DPD sweatshirt and pulled it on over Connor's head. He put the cap on him and pulled the sweatshirt's hood up over it. "...Yeah, good enough," he said. It was too big, but it didn't look out of place over the sweater Connor was wearing.

Connor tugged the hem out to see what he'd just had thrust on him, and then he looked up at Hank. "Thank you," he said simply.

Hank nodded. He steeled himself a bit -- he was going to need more therapy eventually, he could already tell -- and he took Connor's hand and placed his keys in them. "You really think we can pull this off?" he asked.

"Yes," Connor said. He smiled. "We'll make it."

"Okay." Hank nodded a bit. "Where exactly are we making it to? Canada?"

"No. The border would be too much trouble. Leaving Michigan should be good enough for now." Connor turned and looked at the house for a long moment. "I just want to get away from CyberLife and Jericho. I want the world to be bigger than Detroit."

Hank knew they'd have to come back someday, but they weren't supposed to be in this empty city to begin with. Leaving this place and its ghosts behind should be hurting him, but to his mild surprise, it wasn't. Detroit had raised him and it had done its best to kill him, but he didn't have to let this be his grave.

"Yeah," Hank said. "Let's get the hell out of here."


End file.
